Animal Spirits Podcast - The Never-Ending Travel Boom (EP.354)

Episode Date: April 3, 2024

On episode 354 of Animal Spirits, Michael Batnick and Ben Carlson discuss: inflation helping corporate profits, what's going on with chocolate, airport traffic hitting all-time highs, the new Robinhood credit card, the downfall of Jack Daniels, and much more! This episode is brought to you by YCharts and Kraneshares. Join thousands of users who rely on YCharts to easily answer those questions and much more by leveraging personalized proposal reports to truly showcase your value add. To learn more, go to YCharts.com. Checkout our latest conversation with Jonathan Shelon, COO of KraneShares, discussing the economy in China, Chinese real estate, utilizing defined outcome with China equities, and more! Sign up for The Compound newsletter and never miss out: https://www.thecompoundnews.com/subscribe Find complete show notes on our blogs... Ben Carlson’s A Wealth of Common Sense Michael Batnick’s The Irrelevant Investor Feel free to shoot us an email at [e-mail] with any feedback, questions, recommendations, or ideas for future topics of conversation.   Check out the latest in financial blogger fashion at The Compound shop: https://www.idontshop.com   Investing involves the risk of loss. This podcast is for informational purposes only and should not be or regarded as personalized investment advice or relied upon for investment decisions. Michael Batnick and Ben Carlson are employees of Ritholtz Wealth Management and may maintain positions in the securities discussed in this video. All opinions expressed by them are solely their own opinion and do not reflect the opinion of Ritholtz Wealth Management. The Compound Media, Incorporated, an affiliate of Ritholtz Wealth Management, receives payment from various entities for advertisements in affiliated podcasts, blogs and emails. Inclusion of such advertisements does not constitute or imply endorsement, sponsorship or recommendation thereof, or any affiliation therewith, by the Content Creator or by Ritholtz Wealth Management or any of its employees. For additional advertisement disclaimers see here https://ritholtzwealth.com/advertising-disclaimers. Investments in securities involve the risk of loss. Any mention of a particular security and related performance data is not a recommendation to buy or sell that security. The information provided on this website (including any information that may be accessed through this website) is not directed at any investor or category of investors and is provided solely as general information. Obviously nothing on this channel should be considered as personalized financial advice or a solicitation to buy or sell any securities. See our disclosures here: https://ritholtzwealth.com/podcast-youtube-disclosures/ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Today's Animal Spirits is brought to you by our friends at Y-Charts. Michael, typical day in the life of financial advisor. Yoga. Back-to-back client meetings. Meditation. So financial planning meetings, prospecting. I didn't say that. Wow.

Prospecting. Yeah. Portfolio management, operations. So Y-Charts has a tool that can help save time. This is a hack. A tool? A tool? Many tool.

Many a tool. So Y-Charts reporting and portfolio tools can help save time. We use it all the time, just help save us time for this very podcast. Clients want to hear from their advisors. We can't just be a person behind the scenes. So very user-friendly templates. With ours, we have the Animal Spirits logo in there. You can put your own wealth management logo in there if you want.

You can do proposals of current portfolio versus prospective portfolio. Educating clients is a huge part of being a financial advisor. If you want to join Whitecharts and the thousands of other users, tell them Animal Spirits sent to you, get 20% off that first subscription. Go to whitecharts.com. Today's show is brought to you by Crane Shares. Ben, you and I spoke with Jonathan Schell, I'm the CEO of Crane Shares, talking about the Chinese economy, real estate, what's going on, their version of the GFC. We spoke about finding a bottom potentially. We spoke about the buffered ETFs.

Yes. Good talk your book. Check that out. It is interesting to think about China in the aspect of great financial crisis because they're down even their stock market is down even more than we were for the GFC. So in some, I guess depending on what area of the market, especially the tech focused side of stuff is down what, 60, 70, 80 percent? Yeah, it's not great. And so we were talking about finding a bottom there. It's interesting to think about that and especially in light of the U.S. doing so well. So go check out our our talk with Jonathan for. from crane shares. That's our Tucker book, and then go to craneshares.com for more. Welcome to Animal Spirits, a show about markets, life, and investing. Join Michael Batnik and Ben Carlson as they talk about what they're reading, writing, and watching. All opinions expressed by Michael and Ben are solely their own opinion and do not reflect the opinion of Ridholt's wealth management. This podcast is for informational purposes only and should not be relied upon for any investment decisions. Clients of Ridholt's wealth management may maintain positions in the securities discussed

in this podcast. Welcome to Animal Spirits with Michael and Ben. Before we get the show started, I've got a little housekeeping announcement. Myself and Josh are doing a live compound and friends in Los Angeles, California. When are we doing it? The two most L.A. guys I know. What does that mean? What is that a shot?

Oh, you guys are East Coast, New York. Like, you're the complete opposite of L.A. Fair. Is that fair? Tuesday, April 30th, 2004. It is, where is this event? It's Rolling Greens on Mateo. Sick venue.

You're probably not familiar with it. You're not in Los Angeles, Guy, like I am. We've got two guests that we're not announcing yet, but it's going to be a lot of fun. The show is doors open at 5. 5.30. Show starts at 615. There's going to be Hors divorce. Cocktail hour. It's going to be wonderful. Tuesday, April 30th, link in bio or show notes, wherever. You could find it. We'll see you there. I know it's a French word, but that's easily one of the worst spelled words in the world. It's impossible. Right? Yes. I, yeah. Admittedly, I had to Google it. And if you

sign up for the compound newsletter, maybe you figure out who those guests are in advance. Oh, okay. There you go. That's a plug. Ben, you're looking, you're looking good. You're looking fresh. You're looking young. Did you, did you, did you dye your hair? I think it's just dark from being in here. No, I've not dyed my hair. I shave, maybe that's it. You got, you got rid of the gray in your beard and the blue and the shirt, the purple, it brings out the eyes. You look great. It's a new tropical brother's hotness. This is their new release for this year, I think. That is very nice. I'm in Marco Island for spring break with the kids, and I have a few economic thoughts from my trip here.

Dude, you are just spraying inflation all over the United States. All over the globe lately. I think, but that inflation piece, this is what I wanted to talk about. So you stayed, I gave you the JW Marriott that's here. It's a really well-known resort on Marco Island. It feels like a Caribbean resort. It's huge. It's got all these pools and restaurants.

Wait, are you staying there? No, we're staying at an Airbnb. Right, right, okay. So we went to the JW, but we talked to friends who stayed there. And so the first time I went there was 2018. My wife and I went. And it was still pretty reasonably priced. Like it wasn't that bad. Then we went a couple of years later after the pandemic. I think it was 2022. We went maybe last year. And you could definitely tell the prices had had gone up a lot. And I think you went. And that's in like, I don't know, four or five short years, the prices. But I think this helps explain the U.S. economy because I feel like a lot of these businesses realized like, wait a minute. We actually have pricing power here. If we jack up, rates, people are going to, they're going to be mad about it, but they're still going to pay. And I think for people who have money, it stings to pay more, but they're still going to do it. So I'm taking, I'm taking the family to California before our recording.

My wife is a saint. She is traveling back to New York with the boys. I want to be staying for our work event. And we looked at the JW. Yeah, you owe her big time for that, two kids on a plane. We looked at the JW. as a destination. And my God, did it get expensive? I can't remember what the rates were, but it was, I was like, holy, no, no what? I'm not, no. So we heard from some friends who stayed at the JW here, and they had, you can't fit more than four in a room. So they had to do two rooms because they have a big family. And the number they threw out for a week there, that doesn't include plane tickets or the food is now way more expensive. So they actually

fixed up the little bar that's right on the beach there, you know, Quinn's. Really great hot spot. But the food prices are like what you'd see at a really nice restaurant in New York. But it was overflowing with people and they're still paying. I think that helps explain the U.S. economy. All these businesses realize like, oh, wait a minute, these schmucks will still pay. We don't care. We're going to keep jacking up prices and there's a ceiling eventually. But I feel like a lot of these businesses are going to try to figure out what that ceiling is.

And the U.S. consumer is going to say, this stinks, but I'm still going to pay it. I think you're describing what happened in the last two years. Like, they did that. Yes. Yes. That's inflation. Yeah. But it discovers inflation.

Well, no, people always get mad at me in the comments because I don't complain enough about inflation. This is me complaining about inflation, but I think it's the corporations are taking advantage of us, though, and we're not smart enough to figure it out. Okay, I also, one of the things we've talked about a lot in the last couple months here is and we heard from a lot of people that the home insurance rates are so astronomical in Florida. And from afar, you think, why would people continue to pay those rates? And then you come here and you go, oh, I get it. it. Like if you were a baby boomer in your golden years for retirement, you're going to roll the

dice. You don't care, right? You're going to spend that extra money or take that hurricane risk. You don't give a crap. Well, I think not to pick at the scab, but to say like, oh, why do people live there? It's like, well, what do you mean? People live there. They live there because they were born there. They were raised. They have family. They've been in a house for 13 years. What, they're just supposed to leave? But my point is that that's a different cohort. that people that are moving there. Yes, a huge migration of the state, which I think baby boomers,

this is my take for the next 15, 20, 25 years. Baby boomers are going to put a floor under prices in every nice location in the country. Oh, yeah. There will be a premium on beachfront, on vacation homes for a long time. Like any of those places are going to have a floor under prices. Yeah, I agree with that.

Someone once told me that his great, this is like a guy is in his 70s, The best financial advice I ever got is a beach house and never goes down in value. You could poke holes in that maybe. It's probably true. It's probably fair. Come on.

Yeah. I'm sure there have been beach houses at lost value, but 6% of the time, it works every time. I have some more travel anecdotes later, but I'm only halfway through my trip, so I'll save some. Okay.

So, rest and peace, Danny Conaman. He referred to himself, I think as a grandfather of behavior of finance. He gave the father nod to Dick Thaler. He was an absolute giant. the way that we thought about investing, the psychology of all that. It's hard to believe a lot of those original papers were written in like the 1970s. I know he's got some, but like he started, he did this behavioral finance stuff before any of us even thought about it.

Is that a, are you in New York? We've been trying to figure out, there's a fire station not that far from our place, but we're trying to, there's, there's sirens nonstop here. And it's kind of morbid to think about, but I'm wondering if it's a lot of like heart attacks from old people. Yeah. Right? It's hard to bring the mood down.

Jason Zweig wrote a beautiful tribute in the Washington Journal. I just want to read some of his words. He said, why do we sell our, so these are economists insights. Why do we sell our winners too soon and hang on to our losers too long? Why don't we realize that most hot streaks are just luck? Why do we say we have a high tolerance for risk and then suffer the torments of the demand when the market falls? Why do we ignore the odds when we know they're stacked against us? And these are, I think, the economics profession, industry assumed before Kahneman came around that human beings were what they would call rational agents, that we would always act as the spreadsheet would say in our self-interest.

That's what I learned in my economics classes in college. And the minute you buy a stock or have any sort of money on the line, you realize, oh, that's. That's all nonsense. So I think my, I wrote about this. My biggest connemine takeaway is always, so Jason wrote about this. So he said, no, Danny said money isn't the same. Money loss isn't the same as money gained. Losses are twice as painful as gains.

And that concept to me, I think that's the most important concept in finance. How losses get people to overreact and panic and change the way that they invest. I think that that, that whole thing, his whole piece of losses sting twice as bad gains make us feel good is so prevalent in so many areas of life. And I think that's that to me is his like biggest insight. The other one I thought, wait, hold on, hold on, hold on. I want to stick with that. This is why bare markets are so, so dangerous. You spoke about money, loss, being twice as powerful as the feeling of when you win an equivalent amount. With bare markets, I'm making it up. It's 10 to 1, right? Like, bare markets ruin investors for,

ever. And that's why it's important not to poo-poo them as, and I don't think we're guilty of this. In fact, in fact, we're not guilty of this. But like to just say like, oh, it's part of investing. Like, yeah, of course it is. We know that. Just stay the course. It's that simple. Yeah, just stay the course. No, it's not that simple. Because bare markets, like, it stays with people. It wipes them out. It makes them impossible to recover from. And that's why, not to lecture here, but it's so important, like, now is a great time to prepare for the eventual bear market. And that's not like a warning or anything, but like, there's always an eventual bear market, right? And the time to panic is not in it. It's to put guardrails in place because we know

that we're going to do stupid ship because we're human beings. That's, that's the takeaway. I always like to say that you should hold as much stocks in your portfolio as you'd be willing to hold during a bull market and a bear market. Like, so yeah, you're right. Now is it time to prepare for it. Not you don't go looking for the Black Swan Fund or have more cash and bonds. after the bear market already happened, which is a lot of times how people think about it. But we're in a pretty good bull market right now. We're in a great bull market.

No one's going to remember these feelings, right, in two years when it's over, whenever it ends. But when the bear market is here, people remember that. That's a whole idea behind it. That's so true. Yeah, yeah. Everyone can recite the bear markets chapter and verse, even if they were bear markets that you didn't even live through, right?

You know them from textbooks. Who remembers the bull markets? Yeah, we talk about the dot-com bubble. But outside of that. Yeah. People talk about speculative behavior. They don't talk about the good parts about bull markets. His other one, he said, the most important question to ask before making a decision is, what is the base case?

That, I think, is another one that you can, you don't have to be 100% certain about something, but you can say, this usually happens. So I'm going to assume it's going to continue happening until the facts change. Yeah. Also, one more, sorry, one more thing about this. Jason Zweig wrote about in his piece about how he helped Conman write thinking fast and slow. And I didn't realize this until years and years later that he helped edit and publish the book. And he said he had a panic attack, what, two-thirds of the way through the book and didn't help him finish it. And I just don't think he's such a humble guy.

I don't think he gets enough credit for helping create one of the biggest best books ever on behavioral finance. You could, no disrespect to Kahneman. I mean, obviously legend, recipes, all that good stuff. But you could tell when Jason stopped writing. You could tell him what Jason stopped working on the book. It went a little long. I don't know how many people actually finished it. If I had my copy here, you'd see I have doggie or a million pages in it.

You know, it's a very long book. You know the drawing of the horse turning into a donkey? Yes. Speaking of that, dream scenario. It's like Seinfeld about Larry David when he left the last two seasons. Dream. I don't get, I mean, I get the reference, but I didn't get to the last few seasons of Seinfeld. Sorry, people, I was, this is a big point of emphasis.

for me. People always say that Seinfeld went out on top. He went on top because they were paying a lot of money, but the last two seasons of Seinfeld were, eh. Okay. Dream scenario was a bit of a horse and a donkey. Still a good movie worth watching. Oh, the Nicholas Cage. And there's two great cameos in there, Michael Serra and Cousin Greg. I think the fact that you got half or two-thirds of a good movie out of Nicholas Cage these days is, that's a win. Oh, no, the first half was vintage Nick Cage. Okay. I think that's a win, just to get half of a good...

Like leaving Las Vegas cage. All right, somebody emailed us. Hey, Michael and Ben, in honor of the end of Q1, I made a list of all the things that the social media and stock market TV permabairs warned us about coming into 2024, but that did not, in the end, send us into a correction, much less break anything.

These were all things that were on the calendar and we're supposed to happen in Q1. It's hard to remember all them now, but here goes. So thank you, Kim, for the email. We turned his list. into a chart with the help of our chart wizard, Matt. So here it goes. All the things that happen to Q1.

By the way, 10% quarter. Not bad. It is great. The stock market's already up double digits. Pretty damn good. All right. People are really worried about the Microsoft earnings and guidance, right? This is after a monster one.

The most important earnings call ever. Then there was a Treasury's QRA. Oh, man, I honestly forgot what that stands for. Qualified B purchase agreement? I don't know. Maybe something like that. It might have for like six hours. Who's to say?

The Nvidia earnings and guidance, that honestly was a, that was the Super Bowl of earnings. They blew it out. Bank of Japan ends negative rates. And then the FOMC meeting. I feel like the Bank of Japan has ended negative rates like 16 times already. And then the token quarter end pension fund rebalancing. Ah, the rebalance. So we've obviously been climbing the wall of worry, which it always sort of happen.

It's funny. I've heard from a few people. lately saying Michael and Ben are way too rose-colored glasses. Goldilocks and saying everything is great. We talked about Roaring 20s last week, and someone said, listen, your takes are not going to age well, which is like the ultimate dare thing to say. No, it takes age well. This is the internet. This is talking. Everything ends ages poorly. Except, except, you know what? You know what, each is really well? Our 20, 23, no recession, bull market call. That age pretty well. Did it not? Good call. Credit to us. But my whole thinking is, we can.

can say things are good now with the understanding that they're probably going to be bad at the future at some point. That doesn't mean that this stuff we're saying, things are good now. It's true. That doesn't take away from the fact that bad things are going to happen in the future. Listen, all right, listen. There is so much negativity in the world. And I don't need to put negativity out into the world when things are okay. Sorry, that's not me. That's not us. That's not us. If you come here to say for the world was ending, this is going to end badly, the deficit is funded the rally sorry that's not us we're gonna we're gonna call it like it is and when the economy turns and when the market turns we're gonna say yeah things are tough

we'll talk about that too yeah we'll talk about that too it is it is kind of crazy we just so we just had a bear market that we were underwater for two years basically but look at this chart from the this is admittedly cherry picked but it's sometimes like cherry picking statistics it's just me the s&p is of 150% since the bottom in 2020 March 23rd marked to the bottom, 2020. It's up 150% and 25% annualized. And we had a bare market in there. This has been an insane run. Yeah. Yeah. You know, so we, that's, that's a bare market leading into that, obviously, 35% correction. And then a bare market, but it's, it's a crazy, crazy number. We got a crazy number. We had a crazy run. No doubt. Yes. Here, real me this. I want to just talk

about this. I was thinking about this because I saw people posting on, I'm not, I'm kind of staying away from social media and stuff, checking it occasionally. I was checking it during the Iowa LSU game last night. You probably didn't watch women's college basketball. False, false, false. I came home last night from a dinner with the celebrity, not to brag. You'll hear about it next week. And I turned on the game.

And Bobby goes, why are you watching this? You never watch women's basketball. He said, hello, Caitlin Clark, kind of a big deal. My daughter is the biggest Caitlin Clark fan ever. Is she a bandwagon fan? Maybe. But don't know where I said that. She's got like the Caitlin Clark jerseys and shirts.

And she's watched like literally every game this season. So I've watched more women's college basketball than I watched my life. And the game was absolutely amazing. So I was following on social media. So I saw people posting that gold that's hit all the time highs. This is crazy. I don't know that you could have. Wait, hold on.

What does gold have to do with Caitlin Clark? Oh, that was the one time I was on social media. People were treating about gold during the Iowa game for some reason. So we're always really good at retrofitting narratives after the fact. But think about this. This year alone, stocks all-time highs, gold all-time highs, Bitcoin all-time highs with 5% T-bill yields. What scenario would that have ever made sense ever two or three years ago, where you could say, listen, in 2024, stocks, gold, Bitcoin are going to break out, and you're going to have 5% T-bill yields?

I got to be honest. I don't know what's going on, and I'm happy to say that because doesn't gold respond to like real negative rates? Like, isn't that good for gold? So we've got real positive rates. In fact, you have the 10-year breaking out. You've got the dollar ripping. Shouldn't this be bearish for gold? And yet, go figure.

I don't know what's going on, Ben. I can't explain it. That's the thing. Gold is supposed to follow real. If real yields rise, that's supposed to be bad for gold because it doesn't pay dividend or earnings or anything like that. And it's when real yields fall, that's supposed to be good for gold. And I don't know.

All right. Is gold saying that inflation is going to come back? I don't know. But gold didn't do well the last inflationary run. Gold did shit, right? Am I wrong? In 2002? Is gold a risk?

Maybe Bitcoin, like, broke? the severed the ties of gold for macroeconomic relationships? I don't know. Getting back to my idea of corporations taking advantage of inflation and being good for corporations, Kathy Jones tweeted this. Corporate profits rose to new all-time highs in Q4 of 2023. Obviously, some of this is inflation, the profits, but look at corporate profits. It's so far above trend, probably even if you adjust for inflation. Yeah, they're really, they're really good at making money. Yes. That's like, if you, any of the, the spare stuff you want to talk about headwinds and stuff, but corporations are really, really good at this. I just can't imagine being a long-term bear against the stock market. I could never understand that posture.

Ben, have you, have you, you can't avoid like the price of chocolate, right? Yeah. I mean, it seems like this happens once every three to six months where there is a certain commodity and they show the price chart. And people joke about it and I say, take me somewhere, my website take me some more expensive and they show the chocolate. Javier Blas had a good thread. All right. The price is, Coca prices have stretched more than 250% of the last year. $10,000 per metric ton, nearly double the record highs at 46 years ago. So the long-term chart looks like most long-term charts. And then, whoosh, it's going straight up.

This is unusual. There's a historic shortfall. So that's part of what's drive. Is it weather or what? The cocoa market will suffer a large deficit in 2024 for the third consecutive crop season, the most pronounced shortfall in modern history. So more buyers and sellers or more buyers and growers or whatever. So part of it is weather, just really wild stuff.

I was going to mention this in my recommendations, but I talked about bananas being so cheap a couple weeks ago, and a bunch of people said, you've got to read the fish that ate the whale. Great book. By Rich Collin, the book about the banana trade. and they talk about how the weather was so bad at one point in like the late 1800s that there was a year without bananas and how that like scarred people for life back that that book is that's one of the better business books I read in a long time but I feel like we can't have that kind of you read it too how he like went and he trudged

through South America like bananas were essentially undiscovered for America and these handful of people brought them to America That sort of undiscovered thing, like, just can't happen again. Imagine being, like, I don't know, 25 years old and tasting a banana, having never taken. You're like, what the fuck is this? Right. Yes. And they talk about how they knew exact amount of time it would take for them to go bad and they'd have to bolt them up for two weeks.

It's really an excellent book. And I think just the tone of the book, too, is very well written. Really, really good. You know what? I've been thinking about getting back into reading. I said this to Robinier's and she's like, yeah, when? That's true. It's tough. I do most of my reading on an airplane, actually. I took the first step, though. I put a book in my book bag. So I'm thinking about thinking about it.

The best way to do it is I've been trying to get you on this for years. The Kindle paper white is I put it by my bedside table on a read for 20 minutes a night before I go to bed. It helps me sleep. Yeah. Because you can read it in the dark. All right. Larry Fink had a annual letter for BlackRock. And I thought this, I pulled this piece out because I thought it was really interesting. We've talked for a few weeks. You brought up about what do you call the monetary premium. in stocks for people putting money. Not my words, but yes. Okay, so Larry, I never realize this. I'm going to read what you have to say. Most Japanese keep the bulk of their retirement savings in banks earning a low interest rate. It wasn't such a bad strategy. It wasn't such a bad strategy when Japan was suffering from deflation, but now the country's economy has turned around

and the Niki has surged. Most aspiring retirees are missing out of the upswing. The country didn't have anything resembling a 401k program until 2001. Even then, the amount of people could contribute was quite low for income. So a decade ago, the government launched a new savings account to encourage people to spend more, and the goals to have 34 million Japanese investors before the end of the decade. And he's saying it's going to require Japanese government to expand their capital markets. And the hope is that, like, we're going to have way more people investing. And it's like these other countries, I mentioned Italy last week, catching up, these other countries are catching on and they're going to say, why don't we make the stock

market hold it up like a shrine like they do in the United States and have it be part of everything we do? And it's part of the savings program. That sounds like a, That sounds like an easier said than, I mean, that's like a, we've been doing this for a long time. It's a total cultural change. Yeah. Here's another one that he, I just pulled this out. By mid-century mark, one in six people globally will be over the age of 65, up from one in 11 in 2019. To support them, governments are going to have to prioritize building out robust capital markets like the U.S. has.

Here's the other thing, though, with people living so much longer, think about how much more time to compound the baby boomer's wealth has than any other generation ever. So they're the richest generation ever. They're going to live longer than any generation or the biggest generation ever to live that long. Their money is going to compound for longer. So that spread between how much wealth they have and how much everyone else has is going to just continue to get worse.

The compounding effects for that wealth is going to last longer than anyone has ever had before. Because they've been saving since the early 80s when 401Ks hit the market. All right. A listener of the show sent this in to me. Mark Hoddala sent us in. He said, hey, I made it into the Wall Street Journal as a commenter like you like.

So I'm going to give him some credit here. Wait, did he give fake comments? Was he like hit on that? He gave your comments. Okay. No. So he said he answered a little thing saying if you have invested in the video. So he says he's a 58 professor in Kirksville, Missouri.

See the M.O.? That's Missouri, not Kansas. He first bought in Vida more than two decades ago after a student introduced him to the company. Now given his monster rally. he's planning to retire early next year. The stock returns have made it ridiculous to keep working. So you mentioned a couple weeks ago, like, I'm up 50, 60, 7% on the stock. I'm out.

I couldn't hold a 10-bagger. Depends on which stock, but generally speaking, correct. I think I'm in a similar boat as you. Oh, by it, hold on. You're right. I will never, ever have a 10-bagger in my entire life. Like, what's my ceiling for how big a gain I could take? I don't know, but it ain't.

For us, it's going to be index funds for us. us, right? Those are going to be a 10 baggers someday. True, hopefully. But what percentage of investors do you think have that ability? Because I think it is, it's something your risk appetite or whatever in your brain is you're just born with that. How many people have that? Because the people who held Bitcoin from like 10 cents to now at $70,000, like those people are legitimately insane to me that they have the ability to do that. I think, I think and I'm generalizing. I suspect that for most people with monster gains, they're like afraid to sell.

in a good way or bad way. I guess depending on how you look at it. They're like, why would I sell in video or my Apple? Look how good it's done. I don't want to leave gains on the table. Like, why would I sell? What else am I going to buy? And I think that they have that mentality, whereas we don't, for reasons that I already described.

What was the company you mentioned before, your uncle, your cousin held for years? Right? So you have this DNA in your family somewhere. So I've told the story, but for newer listeners that never heard this, I write a lot or not so much anymore, but I used to write a lot about the dangers of picking individual stocks, just all the statistics are against you, right? Like for every Nvidia, there's a million other stocks that are not, that just crash and burn. Right.

The stocks that crash and just never come back, never hit those high. So my uncle in 1996 bought a little small biotech company called Selle. Gene. I don't know what the market cap was at the time. I'm sure it was under a billion dollars. And he bought, I don't know, $25,000 for my mom, $50,000, whatever it was. And that stock changed our life. Because my mom, when my parents got divorced, my mom went back to work, she, you know, she never, she didn't graduate college. So she was a secretary or something, you know, didn't make any money. But that stock, like, legitimately turned into a million dollars. So my mother was the, oh, if you bought $10,000 in,

into. But I remember vividly, like, when Selju went down, like, it was a big deal. Like, that was everything that she had. How was that stock performed in recent years? You looked at it lately? It was bought by Bristol Myers. Oh, okay. I didn't realize that. Okay. Probably eight years ago or so. So your uncle went out on top. He didn't have to, like, potentially hold it and it stagnates or goes down or whatever. But he's, but he's a great, a great example of why would I sell the stock that's treated me so well. I think that's the prevailing feeling for people that have giant gains. This is going to sound like a put down and it's not. I feel like in some ways you have to like have a little, you have to be a little naive. Like we're really not to do that.

This is not a dis. It's just that we know the data, right? We know we know base rates. We know all that stuff. And so we're incapable of holding a 10 bagger, which is fine. Yes. The base rates have like ruined us. Yeah. And this is, actually, this is one of like the big dynamics in the market over the last decade is Joe's over pros. How many retail investors have beat the shit out of professionals over the last decade, thanks to the apples and invidies of the world, a lot. And also how many base rates have been destroyed by these tech stocks? They took the base rates and dragged them out and beat them to death or whatever. Smashed them against the ground. That's exactly right. You know the scene in office space

where they're smashing the fax machine? Yes. That's the magnificent seven to base rates. All right. I'm going to be interested to see what Duncan and John Daniel come up with for the video for this one. Right? If you're just a listener, we have very good production value on the YouTube videos as well. All right. I a couple weeks ago said inflation is over and a bunch of people said I'm an idiot.

That's fair. They can think that. I looked at all the inflation rates for the G7 countries. US, UK, France, Canada, Japan, Germany, Italy. All of those rates are 3.4% are lower now for inflation rates. across the globe. They all followed a very similar path. Japan is the only one that didn't really keep up on the upside. Isn't this the case for inflation kind of being over however we wanted to define that? I mean like the scary inflation is a huge, I'm not takeaway. Like yes, I know

the baseline is set higher and all that stuff. But like inflate like high rates of inflation like four, five, six percent. I think that's just just to be very clear what you're talking about. You're talking about the 5, 6% inflation is over. The scary high inflation. Those rates, I think, are done. Yeah, fine. I guess my point was, and obviously you would agree with this, is like that doesn't really matter.

And not, of course, it matters. It doesn't make anybody feel better about the price that they're paying today, right? And you would agree with that. The other part is that... My $26 Miami Vice the other day? Yeah. The other part is the 10-year is breaking out.

Big floater, though. Big floater. The tenure is at the high. level since November, 2003. It's spiked yesterday when the ISM prices paid component came out. And so, and WTI is breaking out, crude oil is breaking out. Yeah, that probably is the big risk, as commodities. Interestingly, though, so the SEP is down 1% today. Maybe it will finally have that the 2% pullback that we've been, that we've been waiting for. But it is kind of remarkable that, like, stocks are sort of kind of barely responding to higher rates.

Right. They're down one, they're down, you know, the SPs down 1% today, big deal after this run. You would expect that, you know, could give a little bit more back. Yeah, it happens. Okay. So I think my easiest call for the year was consumer sentiment's going to break out. It just broke out to a new high for the first, like, high since early 2021. It's almost lapped those.

But if you look at this, wasn't COVID just the big reset? and I know we've talked forever about like the reason sentiment is so bad but I mean if you just look at how bad it fell during COVID isn't is that a simple explanation for sentiment that that whole period just reset sentiment

lower? No, it was inflation. Look at the, look at how big the consumer sentiment dropped in 2020 though. You know, of course. Yes, there was a gigantic drop in consumer sentiment as you would expect when the economy shuts down and then there was a hell of rebound, and then once inflation kicked in, the bottom fell out.

Interestingly, though, we're having this uptick while gasoline prices are coming back. A lot of people were saying, like, the consumer sentiment is just gas prices. We'll say. If gas prices continue to rise, I'll be interested to what happens to consumer sentiment. All right. This is a great chart from Bank of America. TSA 7-day moving average millions of passengers. And 2024, way higher than pre-pandemic, way higher than pre-pandemic, way higher than

than even last year at this time. I don't understand. I mean, Ben, I know you're flying. I'm flying in two weeks. I thought that we were going to get the travel out of our system. It's really remarkable. I could not have foreseen this coming. Well, the other thing people said was, listen, business travel is impacted forever because

of work for home. No one's going to travel for business anymore. That was like the easy one. How wrong we were. How wrong we were. Somehow, though, I found, I want to have this week for spring break every year. because we're in like a lull between like spring break was a lot of the spring break just happened and there was more coming like yours is in a couple weeks right mine is in two two three weeks

ours is it's not that busy right now the travel actually wasn't that busy for me which was kind nice because i think we're in like a middle ground of of spring break no what i just earned ben speaking of travel silver medallion on delta not to brag okay it's the it's the first medallion here's okay i pretty pretty sure i've had that for a while do you not have the delta card Of course I do. I'm a late bloomer to the Delta card. I only got it like a year or so ago. All right. So here's a question for you. And I'm not judging anyone who does this, but I'm just, I think I could never do it. So we're taking our flight down and we're in like row 30, whatever, you know, because you have five people. Kids in first class. There was two kids sitting in first class on the way of spring break. What do you think about kids in first class? Because my thought is I could never do it because I don't want to expose my kids to having that once and then taking it away. And then they're going to go like, wait, white, you know. But. So what are your thoughts on kids in first class? Because I can see it maybe like, I don't know, you're taking a trip to Europe or something and you want to sit in nicer, but I could never expose my kids to that to give them the taste of it.

Okay. I don't want to judge. But that being said, I'm 100% with you. Okay. I even feel weird that I'm taking my kids in many places. Like, I'm, so growing up, we were not a house, we were not a plain traveling family. I know a lot of families in my town that went to Aruba. I never went to a tropical place until I was like in my 20s maybe.

So we were car trip people, right? We drove to Washington. We drove to Boston and Philly and things like that. So I don't want to expose my kids to first class. Trips are way bigger these days than when we were growing up. That's for sure. People go further. But yes, I just, yes, I agree.

I feel like my kids are already spoiled enough as it is. I can't imagine putting them on first class and how entitled they would feel. Again, not judging. That's just personal. No, we don't judge here. Oh, two more things of the travel. One, if you're flying into New York, LaGuardia, no more JFK. I'm done with JFK.

LaGuardia is, it's so much better. I flew back through JFK from Italy, and you're right, it was awful, awful experience. Oh, so it's very... And the new LaGuardia is so nice. They did a great job with that. Last week, you spoke about, you were disparaging Delta about the movie selection. I was like, what are you talking about? I just flew, and there was like 97 movies.

On the way back from Colorado, Ben, I was on a Delta plane with, like, the smaller movie screen, like the old one. And I was surprised to see there was only like 15 movies. Okay. No, I had a lot, but I just, maybe it's because I've seen everything. There's just, there's no new good movies. I want new stuff that maybe I'm more complaining about the movie industry than Delta. I just think they need to have, they need to have Netflix. I think they have Paramount Plus or something on there, but just put Netflix and Prime and HBO.

Put all my streaming stuff on there. I know you can do it on the iPad, but the Wi-Fi never works. All right, Ben. I want to ask you what's going on in the labor market. Conerson tweeted, we've been in a rolling recession for white-collar hiring. Kind of wonder with this dynamic similar to other bullwip credit-sensitive industry downturns that we've seen. And it picks up later this year just because it has to. And he's looking at professional and business service hires rates.

So I think what this is showing is hires as a percentage of employees. I believe that's what it is. Interestingly, Vanguard had a similar study. our Vanguard 401k data indicates that hiring rates for the bottom third of workers who make below $55,000 per year are generally higher than those for higher income workers. And then they say while hiring rates for high income workers are slowing, we have not seen a material pickup in the unemployment rate for that income group. We've seen layoff announcements for high income workers, most notably in the technology sector, but they have often been able to quickly find new employment as their skills are in demand. So I think that the lower end, whether it's middle or bottom third or whatever, of workers having a very strong labor market with real wages increasing pretty rapidly, has been a huge boost to the economy because those people spend every dollar they make. Yes.

I had a friend try to make the case to me that upper middle class people have gotten the shaft in the last five to ten years because they're paying maybe higher taxes. people who are way better, more money than them are doing a lot better, but the people on the lower end have been brought up because wages have come up. I would not go that far to say that. Well, you could think that. You probably shouldn't say that loud. Yes. But I think this is maybe something, so it's these blue-collar jobs, I guess, that are booming in higher wages. And like you said, the white-collar middle manager job, I guess, is that fair to say that that has been fallen off a little bit? That is interesting. I don't have a good explanation. Well, think about who the technology companies were cutting, or just generally, where do companies

cut what they're trying to? They cut the fat, and the fat is middle management. Hey, you're making $140,000 a year. Like, what are you? We did hear from someone in the YouTube comments last week. I still go in the comments every week. Michael's never looked. I'm just throwing it out there.

Listen, listen, of course I look. There are several reasons why I don't. One is, I don't think it's natural to reach strangers just flinging shit at your face. I don't want to feel, I don't want to have strangers room. 90% of it is positive or jokes. And the other 10%... Listen, I'm sure it is. But more importantly than that, in all seriousness,

I don't want what I'm... Maybe I'm peeling Bethlehurst in too much on this. I don't want what I'm saying to be influenced by one person in the back of my head. True. Because I got... For the rest of the audience, who's like, who is he even talking to?

I don't want to talk to people. I don't want comments in the back of my head as I'm trying to entertain and educate our audience. Is that a sub-sweet towards me? no it says no that i'm kidding we can move on no but but some anyway someone in the comments was saying that like listen i work in the tech field and it's kind of brutal out there with the layoffs and the they're saying like it's people think the tech is awesome but a certain subset of people in that industry he's like it's pretty tough so i i kind of get that all right

so i saw this stat the other day someone posted on twitter one third of all purchases are being done in cash right now and you hear that number and you go gosh that that just that just doesn't sound It's boomers, blah, blah, blah. But I clicked through the source data for Redfin, and look at the chart here. This is homes purchased with cash where there's no mortgage loan information on the deed. That's how they define cash. I don't understand. I just don't understand.

It's been roughly, it got as low as 20%, but that was briefly in the pandemic. But it's been around one-third since 2011. And the median home- It's almost constant. The median home price is, what, 400-something-thous-thousand? Yes. Where's all this cash coming from? People selling there on video?

So they also put in here, they said, while housing inexpensive, affluent Americans who can pay in cash are more likely than lower income Americans be the ones buying. All cash homes sales rose 3% year over year in February where mortgaged home sales fell 3%.

This is just the housing price how expensive has gotten is going to make wealth inequality worth because the young people who are going to be able to afford to buy in these expensive areas are going to get help from their parents, like the wealth transfer is going to happen faster, right? They're going to say,

listen, mom and dad, I don't want my inheritance in 30 years when you pass away. I want it now. Help me buy a house. Wealth inequality, it's a one-way train. It's never going to get better. It really isn't. And the thing is, people always pointed out that, like, it's bad. It's always been bad. It's always been bad. Unfortunately, it really has. So I also think if and when rates fall, I would have thought mortgage rates would have fallen more by now. I can't they've stayed at 7% this long. Three people I know that I've talked to in the last two or three months are doing massive remodeling projects on their house. Like had to move to a different

floor or like grandparent's house to like redo. And they're pulling that equity out. I think when if you if you have hundreds of thousands of dollars of money that you could have that didn't exist, you're going to do it. And don't you think the thinking would be in that scenario? Geez, he lock rates like 7% now, 7.5%. But if rates fall in the Fed cuts, those rates are going to fall too. because those are market rates. But I think when those rates fall, we're going to see, even if you got like 5%, the cashout refinance boom is going to be massive. We've gone from like $10 trillion in equity, 10 years ago to 30 something now.

We've added $20 trillion in equity, home equity. People are going to tap that stuff. Bill McBride tweeted this. Single family active inventory. It's finally coming up. So 21, 22, 23 were well, well, well, geez, so much below pre-pandemic levels. But it's up 26% year-over-year from 2023. It's still down 38% from 2019 levels, but start to see some inventory come on.

So do you think this is more higher mortgage rates finally having an impact? Or do you think it's just people can only hold out for so long until they have to put their house on the market? A little bit of both? A little bit of both. There's a home in my neighborhood that just sold for $1.2 million. And I don't even, I don't even know what to say. You would not, you would not, you would not believe what this house looks like. It's a fine house.

It's a high ranch, which is the type of house that I grew up in, where you walk up the steps, you open the door. There's a downstairs with, with one bedroom in the living room. Is this one you were talking about a few weeks ago, like a month ago? No, it's different. This is the type of house I grew up in. You go upstairs. There's one bathroom, master bedroom, bedroom attached.

Kitchen right there. I don't, it's, it's a normal house. It's a normal house. It's probably, I don't know, 2,300 square feet. Like, it's a very, it's a fine house, but $1.2 million. I could, you know, this has,

it's been two years of this. I feel horrible for new homebuyers. These people could be underwater forever. it doesn't really matter because I'm not like reselling it, but just the prices that people, where does the money come from? How are people buying houses? I did the Zillow thing in Marco again because it just fascinates me. I wanted to like see what the house, the Airbnb we're staying at. It's, I don't know, it's 1,700 square feet. It's one floor and it's in a great spot. There's a pool and it's right on the water. But the house is, it's a rental and it's got some

age, but it's, like millions of dollar. It's like, it's crazy. And I look at some of these and I think, think about if you bought a home here, you know, five years ago, 10, 15 years ago, you won the lottery. Yeah. It's, so, so it happened in a lot of cities, too. So if you own a home, you're good, right? Because you've got all this equity. But again, new home buyers just got royally f***ed. And I don't think there's any, I don't think there's anything that's going to level that playing field. Yeah. So like, when I graduated college during the GFC, we got a raw deal because the labor market was just brutal. And now this generation is taking it on the chin with real estate. Really, really,

really, really rough. Yes. So it's like, yes, I have a job. I make more money. The thing I've seen, I think Conner said this is saying, like, what are the spending habits of these young people going to be? If they have a better job than millennials had back then, maybe this is why you're seeing crazy speculation and stuff and more travel and all this kind of things because what else are going to spend their money on if they can't, if they're priced out of a house. Right. Right. Right. Younger people definitely have more disposable income than we did. There's no doubt about that. As a young person, think about who you're competing with to buy houses. Baby boomers who probably are paying all cash in older millennials who have a ton of home equity

built in already. You can't win that game. Yeah. Yeah. All right, credit card junkie. Did he get it? Robin Hood, new credit card. I put my name in the list. I got to check it out, at least. So they said 3% cash back on everything. Five percent. Robin Hood travel, which is like, the travel sites on the credit cards are just, they're not good. Any of them, right? I feel like the, you don't get deals, you get more points, but I feel like booking travel through the credit card companies is rarely a good deal, unless you really care about those points. You have to be a Robin Hood gold member, so it's $5 a month. I think this is actually, I think the money goes right into your brokerage account, but I think

this is actually pretty good timing on their part because it seems like the deals for credit cards have kind of waned in recent years. I think this is actually pretty good timing on their part. I think it's not a bad time to do it. Did you sign up for it? No. I haven't enough credit cards. I'm good.

I do too, but I can't help myself. I got way too much credit. All right. I've got some good news. This is from the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis. The median wealth gap for never married adults. So never married men versus never married women has shrunk to the narrowest. since, I don't know, this data goes back to 1989.

Wow, look at that increase in that work for women. Holy cow. Median, yeah, there was a monster spike for women, for single women specifically. Not exactly sure what's driving this, but definitely good news. But this, okay, I was thinking about this. Is this because women live longer than men, but this is never married? That's a massive spike, that 2019 to 2022 period. Yeah, this is on me.

I should have read the article. I put the link in. I forgot to read the article. Sorry about that. No, but no, it's, it's the chart kind of says it all, though. But this, this, this 2020 to 2020, period, is going to stand out on so many levels in the future. I feel like they're going to be looking back to this period for decades to come and being like, what, what happened back that? Oh, the world changed.

This is, COVID is the biggest watershed moment of our lives? I'd say 9-11, but it's COVID. is going to be close. Not, I guess you could say COVID. No, no, no. I think, I think COVID changed. Yeah. Everything.

Yeah, you're right. I thought it was 9-11 and I thought it was a great financial crisis. It probably is COVID in terms of like it really, the past. There's a clear line of demarcation. There's a before COVID. There's a before COVID and after COVID. All right, Ben. I told you that I've been doing some shopping lately.

A new shirt, not to brag. But you spend less than $170 on it, I hope. Don't worry about. what I spent. I do worry. I'm going to become your personal shopper and help you not spend so much money. So I don't know any, so I shot at Bloomingdale's, as I said. My wife's like, you're so weird.

Why are you buying clothes at Bloomingdale? I was like, where else should I buy in clothes? I don't know. Not here. And I don't know any of the brands that I'm buying. But anyhow. It doesn't seem like a, it's such a boomer move to go to the mall and go to Blooming deals.

I'm sorry to generationally tag you. So what I did was, I, I finally, I cleaned up my closet. And I'm not quite sure what took me so long. And I learned a few things. 90% of my clothes that I bought from 2010 to 2020 were Gap. Okay. Everything.

T-shirts, jeans, hoodies, everything was Gap. I don't know what I was waiting for. Like, I have socks from 2010 that I don't even wear anymore. I do a, I probably once every six months, I clean my closet out and take a big garbage bag stuff to Goodwill. Yeah, so I did that. If I don't wear it anymore or whatever. And I had a few like, I kind of like the shirt, but here's my will. If I haven't worn it five years, goodbye.

What am I doing? Why am I hoarding shirts? Five years, that's a long time. I would say like anything over 12 months, you've got to get rid of it unless it's like something you're going to wear to a specific event. Oh, 12 months. Oh, that's interesting. You're, you're, I mean, you probably spend 10 times as much as I do on clothes in a given year. Yes, but I spend like 30% of what you spend on an individual item, though, so I can get more of, my money can go further than you.

I'm going to guess, I definitely spend less than $1,000 in clothes a year, like in the last 10 years, for sure. I'm way over that. I like buying clothes. I got a question for you. Who's, who's the sucker here? Because I, for this Airbnb, I bought, I went to the store, I got my own, I went to the public. here, which is the, you know, the, every, every city in Florida, I think, has a Publix, right? My grandfather worked at Publix in the 70s. I come from a line of blue collar workers.

We use our hands, Ben. I do, too. You know the Brunswick bowling pins? My grandfather worked for them, making bowling pins. Oh, no way. Mm-hmm. Hmm. All right, three in one, I got a three-in-one shampoo, conditioner, body wash, like a swab. $2. $2.00. or something. So who's the sucker? The people who buy them individually, the body wash, the shampoo, and the conditioner separately, or the people who are buying the cheap old one that's altogether like me? Who's the sucker? Someone has to be the sucker there. Because it seems to work fine. I'm going to say the individual buys, but I got to be honest. I miss conditioner. Yeah. I really do. I used to have beautiful long hair, Ben, and it all fell out.

I've seen the picture. You have like long, flowing, kind of curly-ish. I think you should grow the side, though. I think you should just do it. I really I really want to see you I really want to see you with a Larry David Maybe in 30 years But I do misconditioner Those were

Those were good times A bunch of people emailed us You asked how do they shorten shirt sleeves At a tailor And a bunch of people I'd say 25% of the people said They take the cuff off

And they cut it there I mean there was 75% Said no they cut it off At the shoulder And short it that way So I'm going to take the people Who said shoulder Oh interesting

Because I saw I saw the this far As people that cut like the What is the same called The cuff, right? The cuff. Yeah. Anyway, the more you know.

All right, Ben, this is from Jim Bianco. He's tweeted, fun chart. By the way, I put that video, the Lake Michigan video on my Instagram. And I got on my personal Instagram, and I never put Animal Spirit stuff on my personal Instagram, at least like videos. And I got so much feedback. Apparently, Holmes, which is the accurate. for the Great Lakes

is the one thing that everybody retained from elementary except you I remember it but at the heat of the moment and like everyone was like

you don't remember homes I was like it was on camera I got flustered although the Erie River was funny I did laugh at that that was good

all right so so Jim Bianca tweeted fun chart 50% of the U.S. population lives in blue counties 50% of the U.S. population lives in the orange counties and there's a hundred

Grand Rapids made it into the blue I'm on the blue Which one are you? You're on the West Coast? Yeah, it's Detroit and Grand Rapids Yeah. And there's 148 Blue Counties and 2,998

Orange counties. Unbelievable. If you want cheap housing, go to the orange. That's not cheap. Actually, somebody sent us an email about the Midwest Surgeal. We're going to get to that next week. Ben, there was an article

the Walsh Journal that I saw it's like, huh, you know what? Yeah, that's true. The company that owns Jack Daniels, Brown Foreman, not doing so hot. And it was, you know, nobody drinks Jack Daniels anymore. Isn't that true? Yeah, because people want the high end, like whiskey drinking is like a new, that's a new thing bourbon. I'll take, I'll take the Woodford Reserve. You know, I was always a Jim Beam. I was always a Jim Beam guy. I was a Evan Williams guy. Oh, Evan Williams is the worst. That's Oh, you know, was blue collard. Awful.

I mean, I did, I, I, I drank Jim Beam when I wanted to make some bad decisions in college, but Evan, Evan Williams was brutal. Jack and Coke, but Jack and Coke used to be the thing. Oh, that used to drink. Jack and Coke, was it, it's just an easy, that's true. That was, go to the bar, Jack and Coke, but we've all become, uh, liquor snobs. I actually like Jack and Coke. I love Jack and Coke. Oh, okay.

Uh, all right, whiskey makers, but whiskey also is in trouble. This is from the journal. Whiskey makers revenue in the U.S. fell 2.2% in 2023 to $12.3 billion. Oh, everyone drinks tequila now. So here we go. U.S. case volume sells by category. Tequila is so hot right now.

Oh, this is interesting. Number behind tequila is cordials. What would even be in that category? Isn't it like an after-dinner drinks? Like a Tom Collins? No, that's a cocktail. No, a cordial is like a liqueur, like a frangelico. Isn't Tom Collins like a liqueur?

No, Tom Collins is a type of drink. Honestly, the only thing I know Tom Collins from is meet the parents. Oh, we're all at Tom Collins mix. Got to go to the store. Tom Collins, I don't know if that's sour mix. You know, I don't think I even told you this story. I went to bartending school. School.

I took like a course. Seriously? Told you, listen, I'm a blue-collar guy. I had all of these jobs. Waiter, bus boy. Hey, I was a bus boy. Bus boy is going to work. Valet Parker for years.

Wait, what was the worst? Busboy. Because the waiters and waitresses screw you out of tips. They're supposed to give you a percentage of their tips. They never give you enough. I was a bus boy at a catering hall.

Not a great job. Not a great job. Anyway, I wasn't able to get a job. I got the certification. Never put it to use. Never put up to use. Never put up to use. I did get a job one time on Long Beach,

actually. And I did, I poured some beers, and the guy never invited me back. Okay. All right. Someone's going to have to email us in what cordials means because I'm drawing a blank here. Conyx taking it on the chin. Nobody's drinking cognac anymore or rum.

All right. So I have the perfect Miami vice. I think about this. I wrote a blog post last week. Like the alternative to do a 60, 40 could be a 60, 30 10. Okay. So the perfect Miami vice is 60, 30 10. Wait, hold on.

60%? 60% strawberry, 20% strawberry, 30% peanut, 10% floater. I'm with you. That's a perfect Miami Vice. Yeah. I've had a couple. I'm having another one today. Did they ever send you to stilts on the water?

Stilts. I don't remember. Right on the water. Okay. All right, recommendations. They had Manchester by the sea on the rewatchables last week. And this is a movie that I heard from dozens of people saying, do not see this movie. It's way too sad.

If you're a parent, never see this movie. And I, all right, you know what? I don't want to be depressed. I don't like to watch depressing movies. but I finally watched it because I like you know what I only give it a try I know going in I already knew what like I knew what the bad part was that how it's going to be so sad kids dying that's the worst thing in the world the movie was way more like lighthearted than I thought for as much death as that was in the movie it was actually it was a really good movie great movie I wouldn't I don't think I'd ever watch it again it's a very good movie it's a one undone for me Casey Affleck is very good so is Michelle Williams all right I already mentioned the fish state the whale I don't got I got enough else. All right. On the way out to Colorado last week, we took a 730 flight, which is really dumb. I was up at 4.30. It was just horrible. And I say all that to say, maybe I was tired when I fired this up. But I tried to watch Ferrari, and I just really didn't care for it.

Now, in fairness, I only saw 20 minutes. I was tired, blah, blah. Did you see Ferrari? Is it good? Do I need to try it again? I've decided to, I'm against any Adam Driver movie where he has an Italian accent, because the other one was bad, too. What? What was the Gucci one? Oh, the House of Gucci? I didn't see that. Did he have a Italian accent? Yeah.

Okay. All right. Listeners, if you love that movie, let me know. I took Kobe to see Godzilla and Kong. Okay. My son, George, wants to see it's so bad. Okay. He loved it.

What did you think? How many can they make? Because I feel like everyone was exactly the same. Oh, it was pretty bad. Okay. It was pretty bad. But it wasn't for me. And it was, you know, it was entertaining enough.

But, yeah, it was pretty rotten. But I was reminded of Godzilla minus one, like, how come there I make such great movies, an hour, Hollywood, big, monster? It was just junk. Okay. Oh, I did try one. I made it through a half hour of the new roadhouse the other night.

Garbage. Just garbage. No, but intentional garbage. But the fight scenes didn't seem real. It's like they used CGI in the fight scenes. It just, it. I loved it. When I say loved it, I had a great time.

Listen, any, any movie that takes place in the, in the Caribbean, I'm automatically. That's true. It was in Key West. No, it was not the Caribbean. It's a key West. So, you know what I mean. Same thing. So actually, Roadhouse has attracted 50, this is from Sportico, 50 million worldwide viewers

on Prime Video over its first two weeks. It is Amazon, MGM Studios, most watch, produced film debut ever. Do you know why these streaming numbers are so huge when new movies come out and they say, like, this is the most streamed movie in history? because there's no new movies that come out anymore. So everyone watches new stuff. Everyone wants to watch a new movie because there's no new good movies, barely.

That's why this stuff is streamed so much. I think that's mostly accurate. There are still good movies, but it's such a lower percentage than it used to be. True. All right, last thing. On the rewatchables this week, they have a movie called Shot Caller.

Never even heard. And they're talking about, I'm like, how have I never heard of this movie? Let me read you this description. Tell me if you're in. Or tell me if you think that I would be in. A California stockbroker is arrested and charged for a fatal DUI accident. And on his lawyer's advice, takes a plea deal which sees him sentenced to 16 months in prison.

While incarcerated, he becomes involved with a violent white supremacist gang. Okay. I thought maybe he was going to be giving out stock tips in prison. But, okay, that's a... I don't know. I'm in. I'm always. Sure.

I've honestly never heard of it before. Neither. I'm in for that. All right, Ben. Did we go long? It's hard to tell. We had a break in the action during this episode. Listeners can't tell because of our wonderful production team.

But we had some internet issues. All right. And it was on my end. There was on my end, not Ben's. That's true. I'm pretty good here. Decent internet in Florida. I'm going to go have some lunch on the beach.

Probably have a Miami Vice. And that's it. Pool later. Thank you. Enjoy yourself. All right. Animal Spiritspod at the compound news.com. Thank you for listening.

I'll see you next time. Okay.